Usually, handrails having a C-shaped section are used in a passenger conveyor, such as an escalator and a moving walk. This handrail is, for example, composed of a core body formed from a thermoplastic elastomer material and a strip-like tensile body which is provided in the interior of the core body along the longitudinal direction thereof. When the core body is formed from a thermoplastic elastomer material, in general, a reinforcement fabric is not used in the interior of the core body and a canvas having also the function of the above-described reinforcement fabric is provided on the inner surface of the core body having a C-shaped section.
In general, the handrail of a passenger conveyor is fabricated by cutting a handrail main body, which is formed linearly, to a prescribed length and thereafter connecting both end portions of this handrail main body into an annular shape. Therefore, usually, on the inner surface of this connection there is a junction of a canvas (incidentally, because connecting the canvas is performed in parts other than the above-described connection, junctions of the canvas are sometimes present even in parts other than the connection of the handrail).
When both end portions of the handrail main body are connected together by causing the end portions of the canvas to abut each other, forces are concentrated on the above-described junction when the handrail is bent, with the result that cracks might be generated in the core body formed from a thermoplastic elastomer material. To avoid such problems, there have hitherto been adopted reinforcing methods which involve fixing a short application cloth between the adjacent end portions of the canvas by bonding, thereby to cover and hide the boundary of the canvas in the junction (refer to Patent Document 1, for example).    Patent Document 1: Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2006-117329